[dude1394]

Say it ain't so... NPR?? And there goes that man "Nixon" again.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=114005771

ROBERTS: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Rebecca Roberts in Washington. If you're just joining us, NPR political editor Ken Rudin is with us for our weekly Political Junkie segment.
We turn now to a little controversy that's been brewing in the news lately. The Fox News channel hasn't been exactly kind to the Obama administration. Glenn Beck, one of the network's most popular hosts, said that President Obama has, quote, "a deep-seeded hatred for white people." Some would say that Fox News hosts encouraged the so-called tea party movement, and it's widely believed that Fox News played a role in the resignation of Van Jones, the former White House green jobs czar.
Earlier this month, Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, told the New York Times that the administration planned to treat Fox News, quote, "the way we would treat an opponent." She went on to say that: As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.
Should the president or an administration have an open adversarial relationship with a news organization? Our number here in Washington is 800-989-8255. Our email address is talk@npr.org, and you can join the conversation on our Web site. Go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Joining us now from our New York bureau is David Carr, a media reporter for the New York Times. He also writes the Media Equation column for the paper. You can find a link to his recent article at our Web site, npr.org.
David Carr, it's good to have you back on TALK OF THE NATION.
Mr. DAVID CARR (Media Reporter, Columnist, New York Times): Oh, it's nice to be with you, Rebecca. Hi, Ken.
RUDIN: Hello, David.
ROBERTS: So what do you make of this dynamic between the White House and Fox News? How has it affected either side?
Mr. CARR: I find it really surprising, given the way that Obama campaigned. I - my impression, and I'll leave the political analytics to Ken, but on a media level, I always thought of the president as sort of the king of cool. You can't get under his skin, that he is able to get rid of - you know, get things out of the way with a flick of the wrist. This seems really heavy-handed, and given the amount of assets the administration has sort of turned on Fox, it's turning it into something of a war and suggests that they are very much under his skin, I guess, which I find surprising.
ROBERTS: And has it backfired? Has Fox seen a bump in ratings?
Mr. CARR: Well, Fox would be ahead in the ratings no matter what. As people well observe, being the party of opposition in terms of media dynamics is always a great thing. Liberal magazines do it very well when there's a Republican in the White House, conservative magazines and talk shows and radio do very well when there's a liberal in the White House.
Those dynamics occur whether the White House punches back or not. In this instance, they've decided that they're not going to let a lot of these things, some of which you ticked off, Rebecca, go unanswered. And they've gone right at Fox with the kind of rhetoric, including telling other news organizations they shouldn't appear on Fox, which seems, I don't know, very aggressive to me.


ROBERTS: Ken, what do you think the political upside is for the administration to take this on?



RUDIN: Well, it's not only aggressive, it's almost Nixonesque. I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media and certainly Vice President Agnew's constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, oh, that's ridiculous. That's an infringement on the freedom of press, and now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing.



Whatever you think of Fox News, whatever you think of Glenn Beck and some of the things he says, which clearly are outrageous, but at the same time, there are some things on MSNBC that I think are equally outrageous - well, I don't know about equally, but certainly outrageous. And, you know, if we had a Republican president saying we're banning MSNBC or it's not a real organization, it just gives you a weird feeling in the stomach. I think it's a mistake.